Kathie Lee Gifford has been in the entertainment industry for decades, always seemingly with a smile on her face. Over the years, she’s shared a lot about her life, through the good and the bad. So, naturally, you would think that she’s an open book that takes pride in sharing all the minute details of her life. Well, we would be wrong, at least according to her best friend, Hoda Kotb, who explained that Gifford takes her privacy very seriously.
Speaking to AARP, Kotb and Gifford shared how close their bond was with each other. The two had an infamous segment on the Today Show where they joked with each other continuously while reporting on stories and breaking news. Their onscreen connection, though, was the real deal, as the two are super close, even in non-work related activities. Gifford dished on being close to Hoda and knowing everything about each other.
“We have fun and we laugh and we support one another. We know each other’s kids’ names,” Gifford shared. “We know when someone’s having a colonoscopy. We know everything! And we do life together… And nobody more so than my Hoda.”
And while Kotb might know all the private secrets and aspects of Gifford’s life, the public certainly doesn’t, at least according to her former co-host. “You see only about a tenth of who she is,” Kotb revealed to the publication. “She gives the illusion that we know everything about her, that she is an open book. She is not. There is a very serious person she keeps inside.”
Kotb also got to speak about her former co-host’s incessant creativity and nonstop drive to be successful. “The thing about Kathie is that at any given moment she has an idea she needs to get out of her system,” she said. She wills things into existence. Kathie wants to put beautiful things into the world, which I think is the secret to happiness.”
Gifford went on the record during the interview and shared just how different she is from what is portrayed on television. While most people think that she’s just a silly and goofy personality, deep down she’s very serious and calculated.
“I am evolving as an artist and a human being, and I will be till the day I die,” Gifford revealed to AARP. “People who think I’m a silly person do not know me at all. I’m 10 percent silly and 90 percent dead serious in my life.” The seriousness that Gifford spoke about resulted in her leaving the Today Show to pursue other business opportunities, which she later explained to D Magazine.
Gifford spoke to D Magazine recently about her new endeavors in Nashville, Tennessee, claiming that she wasn’t trying to ‘reinvent’ herself but instead, was simply ‘living her life’.
“I did not retire from life,” she said to the outlet. “I retired from a certain show. I’d had it with daytime television. I’ve been living it for 35 years, off and on. I was ready to manage my time completely on my own. I realized that for the first time in my life that I was completely free to do whatever I wanted to do.”
And Gifford certainly is. She’s gotten back in music, which is something she loves and is enjoying a world that’s wide open with endless possibilities.
